Good Cop, Bad Pregnant Woman, Pt 2

…Or at least I thought that was “The End”. It was 8 PM, so I was surprised when the salesman called out to me when I was about to get into my car. He asked me to explain to his manager why we were going to pass on the vehicle. “Here we go…” I thought.

8:00 PM. I told the manager what I told the salesman and he asked me if I would buy the vehicle if they would throw in the certification($500 value) so we would have a warranty. I told him I probably would, but it would depend on what they could give us for our trade-in. So, I filled out a trade-in report and was completely honest about the trade-in. I did not have the vehicle with me, so I did not want to misrepresent it in any way. Power Windows? Yea, but two don’t work. Paint job? Great, but the trim is rusted. A/C? Yea, works great. He asked me from a scale from 1 to 10 (10 perfect, 5 average) what was the overall condition of the vehicle for its age. For its age (operative phrase), I rated the car as a 6. She’s a good car…just old.

They came back and said they’d give us $500 for the trade-in. I told them I was 95% sure that wasn’t going to fly, but I’d call the wife anyway. I called Bree, told her, and we both agreed that this was too much money to pay out of pocket on a split decision. Therefore, I went back to them and said the vehicle is priced out of range because we were using our home equity to buy the vehicle and we all know what has happened to home equity. I also explained that tax, title and license kicked the total out of pocket price up a good 10%, which we weren’t factoring in. The sales manager told me that he’d hate to see me pass up a good deal and wondered if we could put some savings with the HELOC in order to buy the vehicle. I laughed. I said, “Sure,we have some savings, but it’s set aside for the baby. Do you want to ask a pregnant woman if she would tap out her nest egg to buy a car?” They agreed that was a bad idea.

9:00 PM. Now the salesmen were scratching their heads(probably wondering how to sell a car to a pregnant woman who is cranky and not even present). I told them I would be willing to come back in a few weeks and take a look at some other models—perhaps something in our range. The sales manager said some stuff I don’t recall and I made some comments about the economy and patience. 10 minutes passed and I was ready to go. Then the sales manager started talking about how he might be able to give us more for the trade-in. He asked me if I would call my wife and ask her what price would make her comfortable in buying the car that night. I told him I could call her, but I’d probably be yelled at. He asked if she was mad at them—I said, “No, she’s mad at me…it is after 9 PM and I’m supposed to be at home taking care of her, not buying a car.”

10:00 PM. I spoke to Bree (they were kind enough to go inside each time I called her) and she was a little cranky, but she joked and gave me a ridiculously low figure to ask them. I figured “Why Not? They could either accept Bree’s terms or consider this the ravings of a mad pregnant woman and accept my more ‘logical’ proposal of showing me some different cars a few weeks later. I got off the phone with Bree and walked back inside and they asked me what she said. I laughed and said they’d probably be better off showing me some different cars next week; however, I did understand that they had this vehicle in inventory for 70 days and if they wanted to sell it tonight, this is what they would have to sell it for. The sales manager went inside, crunched some numbers,and came back out and offered the car for $400 over what we were asking. I asked them if they would also throw in the warranty, and they said yes. I spoke with Bree and we figured it was close enough, so now we own a red 2008 Dodge Caliber. In the tradition of naming Bree’s cars some variation of “George”, we named him Geordie. You can view him (along with the loved and missed Georgina) in our PHOTOS section under "New Car."

Moral of the story: If you are buying a car, it doesn't hurt to have a cranky pregnant wife at the house setting the terms. It makes her untouchable and people tend to overcompensate when trying to make a pregnant woman happy.